Savagery of The Mountain Man

Chapter Four

Big Rock

Emil got ten dollars for the saddle and thirty-five dollars for the horse. Both were worth more, but he had no proof that he was the actual owner, and he wasn’t in any position to answer questions. Besides, forty-five dollars in his pocket was better than no money at all. And if he had kept the horse, it would just be an extra horse to keep up with.

He waited until nightfall before he returned to Big Rock; then he didn’t go into town. Instead, he stopped at a little copse of trees on a small hill about a quarter of a mile from the western edge of town. Dismounting, he pulled a stem of grass from the ground, then stuck the root in his mouth and sucked on it as he stood there. From there, he could see the entire town, from the railroad depot on the east side of town to the white church with the high steeple on the west, and from the blacksmith shop at the north end of town, to the cluster of private houses at the south end. He decided to wait outside the town and not go back in until all the nighttime activity had grown quiet.

Although Emil had no watch, he knew that it had to be somewhere around ten o’clock, because by now, except for one of the saloons, there were no public buildings open at all. In addition, only a few lights showed in the residential district.

From where he was, he could hear a piano from the saloon, but he was too far away to hear any voices. Satisfied that most of the town was asleep, he got back into the saddle, picked up the reins of the other two horses, and rode into town.

He tried to ride slowly and quietly, but it seemed to him as if the hoofbeats of his horse and the other two were as loud as a drum each time they hit the hard-packed dirt of the main street. To make matters worse, the hollow, clopping sound rolled back in echoes from the buildings that fronted the street, and that managed to redouble the sound.

Leaving the street, Emil rode down the alley until he reached the back of the sheriff’s office. There, he tied off all three horses. then, pulling his hat lower, he stepped up to one of the windows of the jail and peered inside.

The deputy was sitting behind his desk with his feet up on the desk, his chair tipped back against the wall, and his hat pulled low over his eyes. Emil walked around to the front, pushed open the door, stepped inside, and started toward the deputy.

The deputy awoke just as Emil reached him. Before he could speak, or react in any way, Emil brought his gun down hard on the deputy’s head, and he fell from the chair onto the floor.

“I didn’t figure you’d just go off and leave us,” Jason said.

“Where are the keys?” Emil asked.

“In the middle drawer of the desk,” Stu answered.

Emil opened the desk, got the key, then unlocked his brothers’ cell.

“Let’s go.”

“Where we goin’?” Stu asked.

“What difference does it make, as long as it’s away from here?”

Sugarloaf Ranch

Early the next morning, Smoke stood by the fire, drinking coffee as he watched his cowboys gathering the cows into a manageable herd for the ten-mile drive into town. Behind him he heard the sound of pots and pans being moved around, and he smelled the aroma of frying bacon and boiling coffee.

Although Smoke employed a full-time cook for the cowboys of Sugarloaf, on this morning Sally had volunteered to help the cook prepare breakfast for those who would be pushing the herd into town. Her biggest contribution, appreciated by all, would be her bear signs, and the sweet smell of that confectionary treat rose above even the aroma of bacon and coffee.

“Whoo-wee,” Cal said when he bit into the bear sign. “Pearlie pure dee don’t have no idea what he’s missin’. I’ll bet he ain’t had nothin’ like this since he has went away.”

Sally shivered. “You mean Pearlie doesn’t have any—oh, never mind. That sentence is so ungrammatical that I don’t believe it is humanly possible to correct it.”

“You ridin’ into town with us, Miss Sally?” Cal asked.

“Yes, I thought I would. It’s been a couple of weeks since I was in town.”

“There’s a lot better ways to go into town than to ride along with a herd of longhorns, Miz Jensen,” one of the other cowboys said. “Maybe you don’t know what it’s like.”

“Ha!” Cal said. “I’ll have you know that Miss Sally once helped us drive a herd of three thousand cows over a thousand miles. I reckon she knows what she’s doin’ all right.”

“Didn’t mean nothin’ by it,” the cowboy replied. “I was just commentin’ is all.”

Sally laughed. “And I didn’t take any offense. But you are right, it is different riding with a herd, no matter how far you go with them.”

After breakfast, all the cowboys saddled their mounts, then rode out to get the herd moving. The animals, used to the freedom of the open range, were now forced together in one large, controlled herd. That made them acutely aware of different sights, sounds, smells, and sensations, and they were growing increasingly anxious over the change in what had been their normal routine.

Embedded in the sounds of the crying and bawling of cattle, and the shouts and whistles of the wranglers as they started the herd moving, were the rattle and clacking of long horns banging together as the cattle got under way. That was a particularly poignant sound to Smoke, because he knew that the days of the longhorn were numbered.

It took them about three hours to get to Big Rock. The railroad ran north and south through Big Rock, with the track located to the east, just out of town. That meant it wasn’t necessary to push the herd down Main Street. They were able to bring them up to the depot by driving them parallel with the tracks, then across the tracks, where they began pushing them into the holding pens that had been reserved specifically for Smoke’s herd.

The cattle broker met Smoke as he came in with the first batch of cows.

“I have wire confirmation of a contract with the Malone Meat Packing Company in Kansas City for seven dollars a head,” Steve said, showing Smoke the telegram.

Smoke nodded, and took the wire contract from him. “Thanks, Steve.” He turned to look at the cows as his drovers moved them into the pens. “When will the cars be here?”

“Sometime this afternoon.”

“That’s good. At least I won’t be eaten up by holding-pen charges.”

“Speaking of which, I need to get over there and make certain all the pens are ready,” Steve said.

“Smoke!” someone called to him as Steve was leaving, and looking up, Smoke saw Sheriff Carson approaching.

“Hello, Monte.”

“I thought I should warn you,” Carson said. “My two prisoners escaped last night.”

“The boys who tried to rob the Mercantile?”

“Yes. Someone came into the jail, knocked Curley out, then let the Sinclair boys out.”

“So they did have someone else with them,” Smoke said. “I told you I saw four riders coming into town.”

“Yeah, the other man was Emil.”

“Emil?”

“It has to be. Emil, Jason, and Stu Sinclair are brothers. Emil is the one we didn’t have.”

“I’ve never heard of them,” Smoke said.

“They’ve never really made a name for themselves, though they served time for robbing a train in which the express agent was killed.”

“If the express agent was killed, why weren’t they hanged? Or at least, why aren’t they still in prison?”

“There was a fourth man with them and they all say he did it. The engineer and fireman corroborated their story.”

“Was the man I shot the fourth man in the train robbery?”

“No. The man you shot was named Logan Taylor, and he was in prison when the robbery happened. As a matter of fact, that’s where Emil and the others met him. The Sinclair brothers swear they didn’t know the name of the man who was with them. They said they met him just before the job and the only name he gave them was Joe. I think that is probably true, since if they had given his name, they could have shortened their own sentences.”

“You said Curley was knocked out. How is he?”

“He’s all right, I guess. He has a bump on his head, and it’s going to be sore for a while. His biggest problem is from the bawling out I gave him for falling asleep on the job.”

“Logan Taylor, you say. I don’t believe I have heard of him either.”

“They didn’t any of them make much of a name for themselves,” Carson said. “Taylor is from Colorado Springs, and I sent a wire to Sheriff Walker this morning, telling him what happened here. Anyway, I thought I would tell you about the Sinclair boys escaping just so you could keep an eye open for ’em. But I don’t think they’ll be dumb enough to try and give you any trouble.”

“I appreciate the information, Monte.”

“Hello, Monte,” Sally said, coming over to join them.

“Hi, Miss Sally,” Sheriff Carson replied, touching the brim of his hat. “I need to get on back to the office. I’ll see you later,” he said to Smoke.

“All right, thanks for the information,” Smoke replied.

“What was that all about?” Sally asked.

“Nothing much.”

“One of the railroad dispatchers just told me that you were in a shoot-out yesterday.”

“Yeah, I was.”

“You didn’t mention it.”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Like you didn’t want to worry me about getting only seven dollars per head?”

Smoke sighed. “Yeah, like that,” he said. “Who told you?”

“The dispatcher said that you got the best contract of anyone who has brought longhorns through in the last several weeks. I was pretty pleased with that, until he said it was only seven dollars.”

“That dispatcher has a big mouth,” Smoke said with a little laugh. He showed Sally the wire.

“Oh, Smoke, what are we going to do?” Sally asked. “At these prices, we can barely afford to stay in business.”

“We’ll do whatever it takes,” Smoke replied.

The next day, Smoke Jensen stood at the edge of the porch looking out over the gently rolling pastureland of the nearly one hundred thousand acres that made up his ranch, Sugarloaf. An early morning mist hovered just over the grass, while wisps of low-lying clouds clung to the purple peaks of the Mathers Fork Range. The clouds were a luminescent orange, the light coming from a morning sun that had not yet made its appearance over the mountains to the east.

A rooster crowed.

From the barn, a milk cow lowed.

A horse whickered, then began running around inside the corral, stretching its legs as it greeted the new day. Smoke heard a low rumble of voices from inside the bunkhouse, then a burst of laughter. He caught the whiff of tobacco as some of the cowboys lit up their first roll-your-own cigarette of the day. He took a swallow of his coffee, then leaned one hand against the post that supported the porch roof.

Two of the cowboys walked out toward the corral to saddle their horses and make a morning ride around the ranch.

“Good mornin’, Mr. Jensen,” one of them called.

“Good mornin’, Boss,” the other said.

“Good morning, Jake, Dusty,” Smoke called back to them.

Over in the little row of small houses where his married employees lived, he could see smoke coming from the kitchen stove stacks as the wives were preparing breakfast. Juan Mendoza, one of his oldest hands, both in age and in the length of time he had worked for Smoke, was on the back porch pumping water into a bucket.

This was Smoke’s favorite time of day and, more often than not, he would make a point of watching the eastern sky change from the dark of night to the gray of predawn, then early morning pink, and finally the full light of day. He had heard a phrase once that he applied to these moments. “This is the first hour of the rest of your life.”

He knew that it was probably corny, coined, no doubt, by some would-be philosopher, but he liked it.

Last year, Smoke had introduced a few Hereford cattle into his herd to see how they would do. His experience yesterday, with the small amount of money that he had received for his cattle, convinced him that it was time to start raising Herefords exclusively.

Finishing his coffee, he went back into the kitchen. He stood just inside the door, looking at Sally for a moment, thinking how lucky he was to have found her and to have convinced the former schoolteacher to marry him. In Smoke’s eyes, Sally was as beautiful today as she had been the first day he ever saw her. She sensed him looking at her, and she turned toward him.

“Have the mountains moved?” she asked teasingly.

“What do you mean, have the mountains moved?”

“I just ask because you seem to have to check them every morning.”

“No, they’re still there,” Smoke replied.

Picking up a hot pad, Sally opened the oven door and took out a pan of biscuits. As soon as she set the pan down, Smoke reached for one of the biscuits and she slapped at his hand with the hot pad.

“Can’t you even wait for breakfast?” she asked.

“Huh-uh,” Smoke said. The biscuit was hot and he tossed it from hand to hand a couple of times, then took a bite. “Anyway, it’s your fault,” he said even as he chewed.

“My fault? What do you mean, it’s my fault?”

“You are such a good a cook and the biscuits look and smell too good to pass up. I tell you the truth, Sally, as good a cook as you are, I would have married you even if you were as ugly as a fence post.”

“What?” Sally shouted in feigned indignation. She threw the hot pad at him.

Smoke laughed and held up his hands to defend himself from the missile. “I’m teasing, I’m teasing!” he said. “Come on, Sally, you know that I think you are prettier than any fence post I’ve ever seen.”

“You had better stop while you are ahead, Mr. Smoke Jensen,” Sally said.

“Sally, what would you say if I told you I plan to get rid of all the longhorns?”

“You’re going to get rid of all of them?” Sally asked. “I thought we were going to run both longhorns and Herefords for a while.”

“Why should I? You saw what happened when we shipped this year’s beeves. You pointed it out yourself, we barely broke even.”

“We don’t have enough Herefords.”

“We’ll buy more, plus a champion seed bull. I don’t think we have any choice,” Smoke said. “What do you think?”

“Smoke, you are the rancher here,” Sally replied. “I’m just a rancher’s wife.”

“Ha!” Smoke said, laughing out loud. “You’re just a rancher’s wife? That’s a hoot! Just a rancher’s wife, my hind leg. Sally, you know full well I’m not going to do something like that unless we both agree.”

“Well, I didn’t say I wasn’t a smart rancher’s wife,” Sally replied with a broad smile.

Before Smoke could respond, there was a knock on the kitchen door.

“That will be Cal,” Sally said.

“Of course it will be. It’s breakfast time, isn’t it? Cal always manages to find some reason to drop by at breakfast time, or dinnertime, or supper time. Or if you’ve made a pie, or a fresh batch of bear signs.”

“Cal is welcome at any meal, you know that, Smoke,” Sally said.

“Yeah, I know. I was just making an observation, that’s all.”

“Let him in.”

Smoke opened the door, and the young cowhand stepped inside. A few years earlier, a starving and destitute Cal, who was barely in his teens at the time, made the mistake of trying to rob Sally. It was a huge mistake, because Sally was as good with a gun as any man, and she got the drop on him. Instead of turning him over to the sheriff, however, Sally brought him home and made him, not just another cowhand, but one of the family.

“Smoke, I was wonderin’ if—oh, you’re about to have breakfast, are you? Maybe I should come back later.”

“Don’t be silly, Cal. I’ve already set a plate for you. Have a seat at the table,” Sally said.

“You’ve already set a plate? How did you know I would be here?”

“Like I said, Cal, don’t be silly.”

“Well, thank you, Miss Sally. You didn’t have to do that, but, oh, sausage, eggs, potatoes, and biscuits. It does look good.”

Sally brought the food to the table and they all sat down.

“Now,” Smoke said as he buttered a biscuit. “What is on your mind, Cal?”

“I beg your pardon?” Cal replied.

“When you came in, you said you were wondering about something. What is it you are wondering about?”

“Oh, nothing really,” Cal replied. “I was just wonderin’ if you had heard anything from Pearlie is all.”

“Now, Cal, you know that every time we hear from Pearlie we tell you,” Sally said.

“Yes, ma’am, I know. It’s just that I miss him.”

“We all miss him,” Sally said.

“Do you reckon he’ll be comin’ back?”

“I believe he will.”

“The last we heard of him, he was down New Mexico way, wasn’t he?” Cal asked.

“He was,” Smoke said.

“Cal, did you know that Smoke is planning to get rid of all the longhorns and convert the entire herd to Herefords?” Sally asked.

“Really?” Cal asked.

“Yes.”

“Oh, wow, I think that is a great idea,” Cal said.

“You do?” Sally asked, surprised by Cal’s reaction.

“Yes, ma’am. Me’n Pearlie—uh—that is, Pearlie and me used to talk about it.”

“Pearlie and I,” Sally corrected, giving in to the attitude of the schoolteacher she once was.

“Yes, ma’am, Pearlie and I,” Cal said. “The thing is, there don’t nobody want longhorns no more. I heard they ain’t payin’ near nothin’ for ’em, which you didn’t tell me ’cause it ain’t none of my business, but I figure you didn’t get much for them longhorns we drove into town last week.”

Sally held up her finger and started to speak. Then she just smiled and shook her head. “You are incorrigible.”

“I’m a what?”

“Never mind.”

“You’re right about the price we got for the longhorns,” Smoke said. “We got practically nothing for them.”

“Which is why I think you would be smart to switch over to raisin’ Herefords. Herefords, well, they do real good on grass, and they get bigger than longhorns, and would make more beef, which means you are goin’ to make a lot more money on them. The beef is better tastin’, too. Why, you ’member that, Miss Sally, when we spitted and cooked that steer last fall? It was a Hereford, and ever’body just went on and on ’bout how good it was.”

“Here now, Cal, you are hurting my feelings. All this time, I thought they were just complimenting my cooking,” Sally teased. “But you are telling me that I had nothing to do with it, it was just because the beef was from a Hereford.”

“No, no, I didn’t mean nothin’ like that,” Cal said quickly. “You’re the best cook there is. I just—”

Sally’s laugh cut him off. “I’m teasing you, Cal. But you seem to know a lot about Herefords. I must confess that I’m quite impressed.”

“Yes, ma’am. Like I said, me and—that is, Pearlie and I talked about ’em some when Smoke brung the first ones in. And since that time, I’ve read a lot about ’em,” Cal said.

“I suppose they are the way to go. But I can’t help it, there is just something about longhorns that I like,” Sally said. “To me they are Western icons.” When she saw the blank questioning expression on Cal’s face, she explained. “I think they are the symbol of the West.”

“Yes, ma’am, well, there is that to be said about longhorns. Plus another thing is they are a tough breed and can near’bout raise themselves. But I do believe there will be a time when purt’ near all the ranches will be raisin’ nothin’ but Herefords, and there won’t be no—”

“Won’t be any,” Sally corrected automatically.

“Won’t be any market for longhorns.”

“Sally, why do you waste your time correcting his grammar?” asked Smoke. “You correct one sentence and he murders the next. You are like Don Quixote, dueling with windmills.”

“I can’t help it, it is just the schoolteacher in me. Besides, someone has to duel with windmills. Otherwise, the world would be overrun with them,” Sally said, and she and Smoke laughed.

“Dueling with windmills?” Cal asked, his face mirroring his confusion. “Who would duel with a windmill? That don’t make no sense a’tall.”

“It’s from a story about this fella named Don Quixote who went around dueling with windmills,” Smoke said.

“A Mexican fella, was he?”

“No, it’s—uh—”

Sally laughed. Now, this I want to hear,” she said, “you explaining a novel that is farcical, but also serious and philosophical about the theme of deception.”

Smoke shook his head. “I guess you are right,” he said. “Cal, it’s just an expression, that’s all. It means wasting your time.”

“Oh. Sort of like bailing out water with a sieve,” Cal suggested.

Smoke laughed. “You might say that,” he said.

“Well, then, why didn’t you?”

“I guess I didn’t think of it. Tell me, Cal, with all the reading you have done about Herefords, is it your opinion that it would be worth investing in a champion bull?”

“Do you mean a bull like Prince Henry?” Cal asked.

Smoke nodded. “That’s exactly who I mean. From what I hear, Prince Henry is a true champion.”

“He damn sure is!” Cal said excitedly. Then, with a flushed expression on his face, he looked over toward Sally. “I’m sorry ’bout the language, Miss Sally.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Sally replied. “I’ve heard much worse. You know about Prince Henry, do you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I looked him up and read all about him. He’s a direct descendant of one of the Seventeen.”

“One of the Seventeen?”

“Henry Clay was the first to bring Herefords to America,” Cal explained. “He brung seventeen of them over. Prince Henry is a direct descendant from one of them—uh—those bulls. He would be a great bull for us. Oh, I don’t mean anything by saying ‘us.’ I mean he would be a great bull for Sugarloaf.”

“Of course you mean us, Cal. You are part of Sugarloaf and you know it,” Sally said.

“Yes, ma’am, you and Smoke have sure made Pearlie and me feel like that. Are you going to buy Prince Henry?” Cal asked.

“I’ll buy him if he isn’t too expensive,” Smoke said. “The problem is, some people get so caught up in the idea of a bull being a champion that they think he is worth more than he really is. I mean, when you get right down to it, all we really need is a bull who has an eye for the ladies, right?”

“An eye for the ladies,” Cal said. He slapped his knee and laughed out loud. “Yes, sir, he sure needs to have an eye for the ladies all right.”

Sally laughed as well.

“Where do you find this—handsome fellow—Prince Henry?” Sally asked.

“He is in Colorado Springs,” Smoke said. “The auction is two days from now. I thought I would take the evening train—that would put me into Colorado Springs first thing in the morning and leave me a couple of days to look him over. I would also get to see who else might be bidding on him.”

“Good idea,” Sally said. “That way you might also get an idea as to how much you are going to have to spend.”

“And, if there are several others interested in him, then it will tell me for sure that a new era in cattle breeding is coming,” Smoke said. “That would be good to know, because I sure don’t want to get caught a day late and a dollar short.”

“You’re leaving this evening?” Sally asked.

“Yes. Cal, you can ride into town with me, then bring my horse back?”

“All right.”

“No need,” Sally said. “I’ll take you into town in the buckboard.”

“I’d still like to go into town with you, that is, if you don’t mind, Miss Sally,” Cal said.

“I don’t mind,” Sally said.

“I don’t have to go to Colorado Springs alone, you know,” Smoke said. “Colorado Springs is a nice place to visit. You might enjoy coming along with me.”

“I’ll just pack a few things,” Sally said, getting up from the table.

Smoke laughed.

“What is it?”

“It didn’t take much to convince you to go with me, did it?”

“Ha! You were just being nice, weren’t you? You didn’t really expect me to go.”

“To be honest, no, I didn’t think you would want to go. But I wasn’t just being nice. I’m glad you decided you would.”

During the drive into town that afternoon, they talked about what would be required in order to convert the herd to all Herefords. One of the first things to do would be to sell off all the remaining longhorns.

“If everyone else is selling off their longhorns at the same time, that’s going to have the effect of even further depressing the market for them,” Sally said.

“I know.”

“I mean, we just barely broke even with what we did sell. We’ll take a loss by selling all the rest of them.”

“It could be worse,” Smoke said. “You do remember the big freeze out, don’t you? We lost thousands of cattle that year, with no compensation at all.”

“Yes, I remember that,” Sally said. She shivered involuntarily as she recalled the brutal winter.*

“You want to have dinner at Louie’s?” Smoke suggested.

“Sure. Only, let’s stop by the post office first.”